By Jürgen Fritz, Mon 13 Jun 2022, Cover photo: © JFB

By reaching the final in s’Hertogenbosch (E) it is just enough for Daniil Medvedev to overtake Alexander Zverev and take the lead in the JFB Ranking for the first time. Matteo Berrettini consolidates position 10 with his victory in Stuttgart (E).

Van Rijthoven beats Medvedev in s’Hertogenbosch final, Berrettini beats Murray in Stuttgart final

Daniil Medvedev lost the final of the grass court tournament in s’Hertogenbosch (E: ATP 250) 4-6, 1-6 to Tim van Rijthoven (so far ranked 205 in the ATP Ranking), but the 6 points for the entry into the final were just enough to displace the injured Alexander Zverev from position 1. The Dutchman had already surprisingly knocked out Felix Auger-Aliassime (8) in the semi-finals and then beat the new world No. 1 in the final. Van Rijthoven climbs from 205 to 106 in the ATP ranking.

In Stuttgart (E), Matteo Berrettini made a brilliant comeback after almost three months of injury. The Italian won the grass court tournament at the Weißenhof in his first start after his surgery on his hitting hand in the final against the great playing Andy Murray. The Scot had earlier knocked out Stefanos Tsitsipas and Nick Kyrgios and rises to 42 in the JFB rankings. Berrettini can consolidate his 10th position for now with the 10 points for winning the tournament in Stuttgart, but has 20 points to defend this week at London Queen’s Club (D) as defending champion.

Zverev and Djokovic can hardly attack Medvedev for the next eight weeks

Since Alexander Zverev will be out for several weeks due to foot surgery, probably until August, he has no chance to attack Medvedev in the coming weeks. And Novak Djokovic doesn’t want to play another tournament before Wimbledon, which starts in a fortnight today, and then has 100 points to defend from his Wimbledon victory in 2021, so he can’t improve in terms of points for the next four to eight weeks if, as is to be expected, he doesn’t play a tournament for the four weeks after Wimbledon.

In this respect, Medvedev has the opportunity this week in Halle (D) and next week in Mallorca (E) to extend his lead over Zverev and Djokovic. However, the Russian is not eligible to play at Wimbledon, so other players can make up ground in the JFB rankings.

The best players in 2022 so far are Nadal and Alcaraz

The best player by far in 2022 is Rafael Nadal, although he was unable to play Miami (C), Monte Carlo (C) and Barcelona (D) due to injury and retired relatively early in Madrid (C) and Rome (C) with foot problems. But he has already won four tournaments this season, including the Australian Open (A) and Roland Garros (A). 266 of his total 268 points come from 2022, so he has only 2 points to defend in the entire second half of the year. While most players compete in about 20 to 30 tournaments a year, the Spaniard makes it to No. 4 with only eight tournaments played in 52 weeks. If he can get his foot ailment halfway under control over the next few months so that he can play a few more tournaments, he could attack the top three. We heard from his uncle Toni at the weekend that Rafa wants to start preparing for Wimbledon today.

Carlos Alcaraz, currently ranked 6th and the second strongest player so far this season (159.5 points) with four tournament wins as well (Rio, Miami, Barcelona and Madrid), could have continued to attack this week but had to pull out of the London Queen’s Club grass court tournament due to injury. He could, however, go a long way in the second half of the year.

That less than 400 to 550 points are enough to reach No. 1 is very unusual

That Medvedev is at the top with only 388.3 points out of a maximum possible 1,000 (if there were Olympic Games in the 52 weeks before, otherwise a maximum of 945 points) is very unusual. Normally it takes at least 400 to 550 points to be No. 1 in the world. Djokovic even reached over 770 points out of a maximum possible 945 in mid-2016. So there could still be big changes in the second half of the year.

The JFB 52 Week Tennis World Ranking

And this is how the current 52-week men’s world ranking looks after Stuttgart (E) and s’Hertogenbosch (E):

Here you can read how the JFB 52 Week Tennis World Ranking works

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